


Polarity

by glacis



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-31
Updated: 2010-01-31
Packaged: 2017-10-06 22:03:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/58219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glacis/pseuds/glacis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A current case opens the doors to Blair's past and creates a new dynamic in the Sentinel/Guide relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Polarity

_(polarity (po-lar'-i-tee) def.2 the presence of two opposite principles, qualities or tendencies)_

"She sells it." Such harsh words. He knew Jim had been taken aback by his attitude. After all, it was usually the detective taking the moral high ground, passing the judgements, not the hippie grad student who embodied the principal of live and let live. And as usual, Jim hadn't figured out the why behind the disapproval.

It wasn't because she was a whore.

It wasn't even because she was capable of so much more.

Either of those, Jim would have understood. Blair shook his head, leaning his forehead against the cool glass of the window and staring out over the bustling grounds of Rainier University at full Autumn swing. It was because of the risk. She could lose so much. So much more than she realized. Practicality and need had no place in the world of written law and court judgements passed down by men in dark robes who had never had to sell the only thing they owned to make a dream come true. He tried to tell Amber that, last night, after he had loved her into exhaustion. Not an easy thing to do to a professional, but he had hidden resources, and he'd been up to the task. She had smiled at him with her eyes as well as her lips, and he'd kissed her goodbye knowing it was luck, not his words, not the circumstances, but plain stupid luck that would save her, too.

People who said there had to be other ways to make a living were right. Those who said there were easier ways didn't have a fucking clue what they were talking about.

Bartering one's body was easy. Ingrained. Bred in the bones. Anthropologically speaking, a medium of exchange that crossed cultural and period boundaries.

Too easy.

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and closed that little door in the back of his memory once again. He had too many other things to do. Things that he had to do.

Things that he could do.

Turning back to his scattered texts, articles and citations, he put Amber Larkin from his mind with a final wish for good luck, and returned to the central focus of his life. There had to be something in here that could help Jim with that filtering problem he was having with his hearing …

 

~ _two years later_ ~

"Hey, Sandburg."

"Hey, Rafe, how's it hangin'?" Blair nodded to various cops as he made his way deftly through the crowded bullpen. He'd been busy the last few days with mid-terms and Jim had been spending a lot of time at the station, so he didn't waste any time getting to his partner's side. In the last four years he'd learned that when Jim went into hiding, something nasty was in the offing.

"Hi, Megan," another nod to Connor, barking in the phone, a smile over to Taggart, a wave across the room to Brown, and he was at his place. Jim glanced up long enough to toss him a strained smile, then went right back to staring at the computer screen.

Thumping his backpack on the floor and shoving it under the chair with a practiced foot, he leaned over the detective's shoulder. "What's up, Jim? You've been pretty quiet lately-" He choked on the words as his throat closed up. There was a picture on the screen. A young woman, late twenties, long dark hair wound so tightly into the skin of her throat that the strands were indistinguishable from the bruised flesh, eyes staring blindly, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth to run along her jaw and pool beside her ear on the dirty pavement. She lay sprawled in what looked like an alley, from what few details were in the picture. The resolution was excellent, the scanner had been high quality, and the vivid colors assaulted his eyes. Her shiny, tight tube dress had ridden up on her splayed thighs, leaving a clear view of her ripped panties and the neck of the beer bottle that had been shoved into her. The pool of blood under her hips was much larger, darker in color, soaking under her buttocks and dribbling along her side. One hand lay on its back, fingers curled in the air, knuckles stained by the blood.

The world tipped, spun, and Blair fought as hard as he could to keep from vomiting all over Jim's desk. No doubt sensing the change in heart rate and perspiration behind him, Ellison clicked the mouse and minimized the picture. It didn't do any good. Instead of the soothing blue and white of the Cascade PD insignia, all Blair could see was the afterimage of the dead woman on the screen.

"Sandburg? Are you okay?"

Strong hands reaching out to touch him, grasp his upper arm, and only then did he realize he was swaying. Light blue eyes full of concern and a measure of guilt scanned him, and he shuddered, ripping away from the grip and heading at high speed for the restroom. It wasn't until he was on his knees in the stall losing his breakfast that he realized that Jim was right behind him. A gentle hand stroked his hair out of his face, another offered a wet paper towel. Leaning his flushed cheek against the rim of the bowl, he coughed up the last of his stomach's contents, then buried his face in the towel. Dimly he heard the toilet flush, a door open behind him, Jim rumble something, the door shut. Not one of his finest hours.

"You okay, there, Chief?" That soft rumble behind his ear, backing up the solid grip on his shoulder. Oh, yeah, fine, Jim. Never better. Just give me a minute to get my belly out of my throat and back where it belongs. Did you know frogs throw up by vomiting up their stomachs, digging out the contents with their fingers then swallowing the stomach back down? Bet you couldn't give a shit. I know I don't. He raised bleary eyes to his partner.

"Yeah." Sounded like broken glass. The image came back, and he could literally feel the blood draining from his face. The world did that irritating swing again, and Ellison caught him before he keeled over and cracked his head on the rim of the toilet. "Maybe not."

Strong hands came under his armpits, gently lifting and supporting him over to the sink. Clamping his own hands on the rounded porcelain edge, he gritted his teeth and shook his head until it settled down a little. When he felt he could trust himself not to ralph again or, even worse, pass out, he glanced into the mirror, meeting Jim's piercingly concerned look.

"I'm sorry about that, Jim. Took me by surprise, that's all. I'm okay now." Well, not completely, but he could handle it. No need to go laying this one on his poor confused cop friend.

"No, Sandburg, I'm sorry. It's a gruesome scene, and you weren't prepared."

"How do you prepare for something like that?" His voice was a thready whisper. "No, wait," he lifted a hand to forestall an answer, "don't tell me. Retain the professionalism, keep the distance, solve the crime, no good to yourself or others if you can't be objective. I got it, man." He tried out a reassuring smile. It came out sick and weak around the edges, but it did the trick. Some of the tension lines eased out of Ellison's face, although the worry remained in his eyes.

"Are you sure you're all right?" That was his Blessed Protector. Toss him feet first into the twelve foot end of the pool, then throw him the water wings.

"Yeah, man, all right enough. Is this what you weren't talking about?" A little nod, that white line around the firm lips, that muscle twitching in the side of that strong jaw. Oh, yeah, Jim was having a tough time with this one. Forcing all the bad shit back into the shadows where it belonged, he took a deep, steadying breath, splashed water on his face, rinsed out his mouth and turned to his partner. Gesturing toward the door, he waited until Jim reluctantly headed back out of the restroom before saying anything.

"So. What's the story?" Jim's forbidding look and Blair's reassuring nods kept the concerned inquiries to a few quizzical, quickly dampened looks. By the time they returned to Jim's desk, all was back to normal with the other cops. Blair nodded toward the computer, and Jim sat down, maximizing the screen and quickly opening the next page in the report. Blair carefully didn't look at it until his peripheral vision assured him that the only thing on the screen was text.

"Prostitute, aged late twenties, early thirties, found three nights ago in an alley off Jackdaw street behind a bar. Street name was Babydoll, real name Madison 'Dolly' Montiguez. Several priors for solicitation, a few stretches in county, nothing major, no drugs, no connections. And nobody's talking. Even her pimp has gone to ground. She had a one room place she shared with two other girls, but we didn't find anything there that was helpful." In response to Blair's questioning look, Jim shrugged. "You were giving a test, Chief, and it wasn't a tough call." Both brows raised at that one, and Jim nodded. "Okay, the alley …"

"Sucked." One hard word, a world of disgust behind it. Jim nodded.

"Yeah. Sucked. But there wasn't much to find there, either. I just got the autopsy report today." He gestured at the screen. "Bled out. Massive hemorrhaging due to-"

"I saw it, Jim. You don't need to go into details." The strain was back in his voice, as he pushed the words out past the blockage in his throat. Ellison stopped and stared at him, silently asking yet again if he was okay. He glared back. "What else?"

"Well, at least she probably didn't know it."

Blair stared at him. "How could she not know it, man?"

"The killer had strangled her with her hair, and the pattern of bruising and placement of the corpse indicates that she was strangled before she was …" he stopped, narrowed his eyes, edited himself, and went on, "so she was unconscious when that happened, that she didn't struggle at that point, and probably never regained consciousness."

"Thank god." He didn't pray often but he meant this one. Ellison nodded his agreement. "Any leads?"

"No, and to tell you the truth, Chief, I've hit a dead end. There are no fingerprints on the bottle, none on her clothing, there were so many smells I couldn't isolate any specific to her other than the scent she was wearing, and there were no hair or semen samples recovered from the body. No skin cells under her nails, no indication that she fought at all, just gravel in the skinned patches on her palms and knees, a lump on the back of her head, and one hell of a lot of blood."

And she's just a whore, Blair thought, but kept inside. He knew that Jim didn't differentiate, treated every homicide that crossed his desk with the same thorough attention, but he also knew that attitude didn't make it past the division. Simon would be just as willing to treat every crime the same, but the Chief of Police and the Mayor didn't. A murdered prostitute was something to sweep up fast before the tourists got wind of it, not a crime against a person that had to be solved. And if Jim said he had no clues, well, then, what Blair had to tell him wouldn't make one whit of difference.

Slumping in his seat, he asked as calmly as he could, "Do you want to go back to the crime scene?"

Ellison shook his head. "No point, chief. Nothing there to find."

Instead of pushing the point, Blair let it slide. Just this once.

 

Later that night, staring at the ceiling in his room, he listened to the soft exhalations of Ellison sleeping above him and let the door in his memory slip open just a crack.

An experiment, a dream, one he was willing to change life as he knew it in order to pursue. Outwardly confident, excited, enthusiastic, inwardly alone as he had never been in his life. His earliest memories were of a commune, adults and children in one large, bustling tangle, a lap and a hug never far from reach. Later, as times changed and people drifted apart, it was he and Naomi, a commune of two, a mutual support society that was never broken, drifting together wherever the wind took them.

Until a dream anchored him in one place, and the next time the wind blew, he was alone.

Oh, not completely. He could always reach her, in an emergency, but he was determined on his dream. He loved people, was fascinated by them, wanted to know everything there was about them. Where they came from, why they did what they did, how they differed from one another. He wanted to be an anthropologist, and if that meant settling in at a University with people who were older than he was and more settled than he was and who didn't have a clue how to handle who he was, then so be it. He could deal with it. He had to, he had a dream to make come true.

Except the reality wasn't quite like he'd expected. True, the classes were fascinating, and he had a few advantages over his classmates in that he'd been to a lot of the places they had only read about, and he was brighter than the vast majority of them. But he'd never been taught to hide his talents, he'd only learned to shine, and in a very short time he found himself adored by his teachers and ignored by his classmates. For the first time in his life he understood not only being alone, but loneliness.

That wasn't the only problem. Financial aid covered the classes, and the texts, but not the living expenses. And while he wasn't a spendthrift, he didn't have the checks from home his classmates had, and he often found himself short of cash. He was in a dorm but had nothing in common with his roommates, who went out of their way to make things miserable for the skinny, runty little brat who was ruining the curve in their classes. He was adrift, vulnerable, although he only recognized that with the benefit of time and distance. He was looking for an anchor.

He found Paul.

A teaching fellow who taught Intro to Anthropology to the incoming freshmen, Paul was bright, and funny, and fascinating. He loved anthropology, but it wasn't his life. People were his life. He was always surrounded by friends, and he was always busy with one thing or another, but he also always had time for Blair. He listened, encouraged Blair to talk, took him out for dinner when the wallet got too strapped, let him crash at his place when the roommates got to be too much. Paul was gorgeous, light brown hair that showed gold in the light, big brown eyes, mobile face, big and brawny and beautiful.

Blair would have followed him into hell.

With a muffled oath, he squeezed his eyes shut, slammed the door on his memory, and buried his face in his pillow. Eleven years was a long time to go back, and like he was always telling Jim, repression was addicting. Unhealthy.

Necessary.

 

Another two days had passed, and the prostitute murder was pushed to the back burner by other, more pressing crimes that had more clues to follow. Ellison would bring it up on the computer from time to time, wander down to the lock-up to examine the victim's effects, but nothing new presented itself. Blair hung out, guided him through a very detailed examination of the blood-soaked dress, and did research beside his partner. The usual.

Taking a break from a particularly dry if undoubtedly fascinating tomb on the correlation between game patterns, hunting rituals and tribal scouts, he wandered toward the break room in search of caffeine. Passing by Brown's desk he heard the detective bringing Rafe up to speed on one of his current cases. The first words out of Brown's mouth caused him to freeze.

"Yeah, Nicola Hassim. Big time corporate chick, very high in marketing for Nordstrom's. Found her on her deck, hacked to bits. God, there was blood everywhere. Looked like some freak went finger-painting."

Rafe mumbled something about headcases, and Blair felt the blood start to circulate in his legs again. Shakily, praying no one would notice, he bypassed the break room and made his way down the hallway to the supplies closet. Slipping inside, he let his knees do what they wanted to do and give out, sliding down to land in a little heap between the rolls of toilet paper and the fluorescent light bulbs. Wrapping his arms around his knees, he hugged them to his chest and rested his forehead on them. His hair fell down around his face, blotting out the weak light from the single bulb hanging from the ceiling, and he closed his eyes.

They'd called her Nikki. Another brunette. Paul seemed to like the dark haired ones. The first time he'd asked Paul what he could do to repay him for his kindness, Paul had just smiled, then leaned forward, kissing him lightly. Blair hadn't shied away. He knew what sex was. It was impossible to grow up in a communal family without hearing things, and seeing things. Naomi had explained a long time ago about the body, and nature, and urges, and safety, and privacy, and loving the person not the package, and all those things. He'd lost his virginity to a girl when he was fifteen, shortly before deciding to go to Rainier. He loved Paul, and if that's what Paul wanted, he was cool with that.

But Paul hadn't. At least, not after the first time.

In the dark, in his mind, behind his closed eyes, a decade disappeared.

It hadn't hurt as much as he'd thought it would. Paul had taken his time, used lots of slippery stuff, turned him on so thoroughly he hadn't really noticed until it was too late, but it was okay. He liked hugs, loved to be cuddled, and Paul was holding him. He'd come, so it couldn't have been too bad.

"You're a natural, kid." Husky voiced approval, echoed in the light in those warm brown eyes.

"I love you, Paul." To his surprise, Paul laughed. It wasn't a cruel laugh, but it hurt just the same. Before he could pull away, Paul pulled him closer and kissed the side of his neck. It felt wonderful.

"No, you don't." He opened his mouth to protest, and Paul ran a finger along his lips, dipping into his mouth to press lightly at his tongue. "You like me, and I like you, and the sex was fantastic. But sex is, and you can confuse feeling great with loving somebody, especially when you like them." That sounded logical, but he wasn't sure he was supposed to be logical about this. He tried to raise the question but Paul's finger was easing in and out of his mouth just as Paul had just been easing his cock in and out of Blair's body, and the tactile memory was getting him hard again. He forgot the question. "You can have this any time you want it, Hotshot. Doesn't have to be me. It can be great with other guys, too."

He wanted to protest, but the only sound he could make was a small moan around the finger in his mouth, as another finger quested along the crease of his ass, playing in the semen seeping from him, pushing at his hole, teasing him. The world polarized into those two fingers, his mouth and his ass, and before he was really aware of what was happening he was spreading his thighs again, whimpering, humping himself on those fingers, sucking desperately on the others. As the fingers left and the length of Paul's cock pushed back into him, he heard, dimly over his own moans, a satisfied laugh. "A fucking natural."

A month later, he found out what a natural meant to Paul. He was desperate by then, wanting Paul so badly he was half hard all the time, but Paul wouldn't touch him. Then his roommates stole the last of his food out of the fridge when he aced his mid-terms, and he went around to Paul's house to beg some dinner. Paul was on the way out as he came up to the door.

"Hey, man, are you … I was wondering …" Please feed me. Please let me stay. Please hold me. Please make love to me. Paul read it all without him having to say a word.

"I'm on my way out to dinner, Hotshot, wanna come? There'll be some fun later."

Blair was eager to go. Enjoyed the salmon and the rice and the veggies and the good wine, thought the Thai visitors were very interesting men, captivated them with his interest in their culture. The party moved on to their hotel, and Blair was given more wine, and there was more talk, far into the evening.

Then Paul kissed him, and his clothes were stripped off him, and hands were touching him. Mouths were licking and biting at his skin, fingers running through his hair and along his legs, spreading them, slicking him. A mouth was at his cock, another covering his own mouth, a third, oh, god, eating him out, then stuffing him full. Then a cock was filling him, and he was blown apart, writhing between the mouth swallowing his cock and the one ramming him from behind and another somehow sliding down his throat, and he was moaning and coming and swallowing and the world was spinning away.

He didn't know how often he was fucked that night, but he was taken at least once by all four of the Thai businessmen, and once by Paul. He sucked off at least two of them, but by then his memory was swamped with sound and images and tastes and smells, and he couldn't be sure. He didn't remember being dressed, but he came to in Paul's bed, with his mentor standing at the side of it, handing him strong tea and aspirin and grinning down at him.

"A natural, Hotshot." And it had felt good. It had felt fantastic, in fact. He wasn't quite sure just what had happened, but his body had enjoyed it, if the lingering relaxation underlying the sore muscles was any indication. Then Paul had dropped an envelope on his belly.

One thousand dollars.

He stared at the money, tea forgotten. "What's that for?" His head was still muzzy, and he felt a little like he'd been hit by a truck, and he wouldn't be sitting down right for a few days, and he couldn't figure out why Paul was giving him a thousand bucks.

"I told 'em you were a virgin," Paul said cheerfully, propping himself against the bureau and looking down at Blair. It still didn't make sense.

"So?" Talk to me, he urged mentally. Explain to me.

"For the sex. I told you it would be fantastic, even with other guys. And if they're willing to pay for it, hey, why not?"

Blair stared at the money. "That would make me a prostitute."

Paul laughed quietly. "You're not just a prostitute, Hotshot. You're a natural. You're hot, and you're horny, and you need the money. They were happy. You were happy. Did anybody get hurt?"

Blair shifted, careful of his tender ass. "No," he said slowly. "Not really."

"And they won't," Paul's voice turned serious. "I'll make sure they don't. I'll take care of you, Hotshot."

The money had spilled across his lap as he shifted, and he stared at the bills. He could get that book he'd been wanting for months, the one about Burton that he'd had to special order. The one he wouldn't have been able to afford until at least next semester if then. And he could restock the fridge … maybe even get a little one he could lock in his room so they wouldn't steal all his food the next time he showed them up in class. He looked up as Paul lifted his chin with one gentle finger.

"You don't have to do anything you don't want to do, Blair. But if you want to, and if you need the money … you're not hurting anybody, and you're making some people really happy. And it feels good. So if you want to do it again, let me know. I'll make sure you're taken care of, Hotshot. I won't let anything bad happen to you."

And he hadn't. Three months later, twelve weeks of no one touching him, six weeks after unwrapping the Burton tome and running his hands over the pages of his future, he went back to Paul. This time, Paul didn't go out with him. This time, he and a woman friend of Paul's went out to dinner; this time the visitors were German; this time he didn't drink as much wine; and he fucked the woman and was fucked in turn by the men. And it felt just as good as it had the last time. The next morning he woke sandwiched between the woman and Paul, with an envelope holding another thousand dollars tucked between his thighs, less of a headache, lassitude creeping under his skin along his muscles, and the sure knowledge that he would be doing this again.

The woman's name was Nikki Hassim.

He swallowed the bile from the mental image of Nikki violated as Dolly had been, forcing his mind away from the picture to focus on technicalities. He couldn't be said to be withholding evidence. It could be a coincidence. Brown would make it known soon if he was running out of leads, and Blair couldn't think how his knowing both women could help.

It could only hurt.

Running shaking hands through his hair, he composed himself as best he could and went back out to join his partner.

 

The next few days defined hell. A small voice, gradually growing louder, was insisting that Blair tell Jim. A much louder voice, being slowly beaten down by the smaller voice, insisted that it would do no good, that it would destroy their friendship, that Jim would never understand and that it certainly wouldn't help the dead women. Jim kept sending him concerned little looks, but Blair ignored them. He had to process this. Had to come to a conclusion. Had to do something but he hadn't the faintest fucking clue what.

Turned slightly away from his increasingly hovering partner, Blair did his best to tune him out and concentrate on his lecture notes. He was falling behind, all this distraction not doing a damned thing for his concentration. Underlining a point on structure in ancient Sumerian religious orders that he wanted to emphasize to his freshmen, he was startled to hear Megan's accented voice growling into the phone at her desk behind him.

"I am well aware of the concept of attorney-client privilege in this country, Miss Saunders, but in case it has escaped your notice, your employer will not be invoking that privilege. Mr. Andros was murdered, and if we are to find the person or persons who murdered him we will require some cooperation!"

His mind went blank. "Andros? Pyotr Andros?"

He didn't realize he'd spoken aloud until Jim answered him. "Yeah, big-time corporate lawyer. Somebody killed him last night. Connor got the call. Why?"

"Recognized the name," Blair managed to blurt out, then swallowed convulsively. Once was an accident, twice could be coincidence, but three times was a pattern.

"Well, whoever did it did a pretty thorough job. They thumped him over the head, beat him to a bloody pulp then rammed a poker up his backside. Bled to death in his own office before anyone even knew the security system had been breached."

Both Jim and Blair blanched at Megan's matter-of-fact recitation, for very different reasons. As Megan began to quiz Jim on operational procedure when dealing with balky secretaries, Blair stared down at the text now bleeding together into a swirling black mass in front of his eyes.

He hadn't done it that many times. A half dozen, maybe eight times in the course of a year. The extra money came in very handy, and he was able to pay the incidental expenses when a research trip to the Tuxtla Mountains to study Olmec ruins came up. It was good timing, although at the time he thought it was a nightmare.

Four days after he left on the three month long trip, Paul was arrested for running a stable of prostitutes, some of whom were underage. There were several charges brought against him, and during the trial, they were all proven. Seven of Paul's stable, including Dolly Montiguez, were arrested along with him. To his credit, Paul refused to testify about the women and men he had working for him, and since they were drawn from different schools on campus there was very little the seven arrested could tell about the others who hadn't been caught in the net.

Others like Nikki Hassim. Pyotr Andros. And Blair Sandburg.

Dolly and three others were convicted, as was Paul, but Paul got the harshest sentence, one that would keep him behind bars for several years. The courts didn't look kindly on what they considered to be child molestation.

Neither did the convicts.

By the time Blair got back it was old news, titillating but not in the front of everyone's mind and the tip of everyone's tongue as it had been eight weeks before. Blair was questioned perfunctorily, but more as a follow-up than for any real purposes of prosecution. He lied through his teeth with perfect innocence on his face, and they believed every word he said. Afterward, Blair shut down, devoted himself completely to his newly defined area of study, Sentinels, and tried to forget. Not what he'd done, but what had happened to the man he still considered that he loved. And his own guilt, rational or not, for escaping the punishment he believed that Paul had taken for all of them. Eventually, he pushed it all into a small, dark corner of his mind and slammed the door firmly.

Now it was wide open. And blood was flowing through it like a fucking river.

"Jim?" He cut into the discussion between the detective and the constable, not even realizing he was interrupting them. Megan cocked her head and studied him.

"You all right, Sandy?"

He was getting damned tired of that question. Of course he wasn't all right. He smiled at her anyway -- it wasn't her fault. "Fine, Megan, thanks. Jim, I need to talk to you."

Jim looked askance at him. "So, talk." A question in his voice.

"Not here." Megan made a movement as if to rise, and he waved her back into her seat. "We need to have Simon in on this one."

Now both cops were staring at him. Jim opened his mouth to ask another question, and Blair simply stood and headed for Simon's door. He didn't see the glances they exchanged behind his back but he could feel them, then he heard Jim come up behind him.

"What's up, Chief?" Quiet, concerned. Always protective. Dear lord, what this would do to Jim. Blair took a deep breath. Jim was just going to have to deal with it. There was too much at stake here not to come clean. There was a connection between all these corpses, and he was the only one who knew what it was.

Pausing at the door, raising one hand and knocking firmly, he looked up over his shoulder at his partner. "I don't think I can say all this twice, Jim. Please, let me do this my way."

Jim nodded, reluctantly, and Simon's muffled "Don't just stand there, come in!" came through the door. Blair took a deep breath and walked into the office, Jim trailing behind.

"It better be important, Ellison. I've got the Mayor on my ass about this little murder spree we have going down and I'm not in the mood for piddly shit." Stress was showing on Simon's face, not to mention the chewed end of the cigar clamped between his teeth.

"You'll have to ask Sandburg," Jim replied calmly, leaning against the table and crossing his arms, nodding toward his partner. Blair wondered briefly how long that calm would last once he started talking. Then he wondered even more briefly how on earth he was going to say it. Then the mental image of Dolly, overlaid first with Nikki, then with Pyotr, flashed in front of his face, and his mouth opened, words falling out on their own without any forethought or intent.

"There's a connection. Between the killings. Jim's dead prostitute, Brown's dead businesswoman, Megan's dead lawyer. There's a connection." All in one breath. Then he hit a wall, staring at Simon, his tongue dead in his mouth.

Banks leaned back in his chair and stared at him. "Well, go ahead, baffle me with your brilliance, Sandburg. How'd you find the connection?"

He took a deep breath and the words came tumbling out again. "I didn't realize there was a pattern. One, maybe even two, that can be a coincidence, right? But not three. No way, man, you hit three and there's something nasty going down, something planned. There's a connection, and it's gonna spread, and I'm gonna get caught by it if we don't stop it and stop it now."

Ellison came to his feet, all semblance of calm gone. "What the hell are you talking about, Sandburg?"

"Dolly. Nikki. Pete. Me. We all … we worked for … Paul." The words were drying up as he tried to explain, to these two men who would never in a million years understand, what Paul had meant to him. "About eleven years ago. Paul Zaminsky. Graduate teaching fellow at Rainier U. My friend. We were all Paul's friends. And he would arrange things for us. He took a cut, but it was safe, we never went with anybody who'd hurt us. But we were all doing it. Sometimes Nikki and I would go out in a pair. But all of us were involved with Paul. Dolly was busted but the other three of us weren't -- some of the others were busted too, but they haven't died yet. Or at least I haven't heard about it." He stopped, drawing in a deep breath. "So, that's the connection."

Into the dead silence in the office, as both men tried to figure out what Blair had been trying to tell them, two nearly whispered comments dropped.

"Zaminsky." Musing, thinking back to another department, a whole different set of case files.

"Go out? Worked for? What are you trying to tell us, Chief?" Disbelief, denial, the whole confused mass of not wanting to believe a word he was hearing.

Blair paced back and forth along the front of Simon's desk. "Paul set up dates for people-"

"Ran a stable of prostitutes," Banks interrupted. "I remember that case. I was in Vice then, right before my promotion out. Several students at the University were involved in a prostitution ring that … we … broke …" His voice trailed off and he stared at Blair, his eyes widening. Blair nodded.

"No. Fucking. Way." That was his Jim. Deny reality as long as possible until it reached up and swatted him across the face. Blair turned to face him.

"Amber's not the first student to sell what she can to make her tuition payments, Jim." His friend looked pole-axed, jaw clenched so tightly it was a wonder they couldn't hear the enamel cracking from his teeth from clear across the room. "I was on a research trip to the Isthmus when Paul was arrested, or I probably would have been as well. Nikki was at a semester exchange at Harvard, or they'd've probably got her. I don't know how they missed Pyotr. But that's the connection. Somebody's going after Paul's group." Turning from Jim's set face, he stared back at Simon, still sitting there staring at him like he was an alien somehow dropped by mistake into his office. "We need to catch him, and I know how we can do it. Make me bait."

"NO!" Blair flinched, certain they could hear that bellow all the way down to the streets. Reining in his instinctive movement to go to his Sentinel and calm him, he licked his lips and kept going.

"The murderer has a list. I'm on it. If Nikki was on it, then I'm on it. He's going to be coming after me. With or without your protection. At least if I'm a tethered goat, man, I'll be a goat with guards." He turned back to Jim, one hand reaching out in spite of himself. Jim withdrew, not much, but enough to freeze Blair in his tracks. Letting the hand fall to his side, he repeated, "With or without you, Jim. I don't want to end up cut into chunks all over campus, man."

Ellison turned white, then green, and Blair nodded, feeling green himself. He swiveled his head, to find Simon very slowly nodding his head in agreement.

"Kid has a point, Jim. He's a target. We can put him into protective custody, in which case everyone at the precinct will know why," at this, both Jim and Blair choked, but Simon swept on. "Or we can call in a few trusted detectives, watch him around the clock, and catch the bastard when he goes after the kid." He paused for a moment, casting Jim a challenging look, daring him to find a logical reason not to run the sting. Jim stared back, then glanced over at Blair as if he'd never seen him before. Blair watched Jim's chest rise and fall as the man took a very deep breath, then nodded his own agreement.

"I don't like it," Jim said quietly. "I don't like any part of it. But Sandburg has a point. He is a potential victim, and he will be a good draw." He paused, swallowed, then stared straight at Blair. "We have to talk."

"Later," Blair put him off. "We will." He risked it again, one small touch to Jim's forearm, and this time the flinch was obvious even to Simon. Blair pulled back, took his own deep breath, and turned back to the Captain. Work first. Eliminate the threat. Then see if there was any way to heal the damage.

 

The task force, if it could be called such, was a small one. Brown, Connor, Ellison, Banks and Sandburg, all the detectives currently working the Stable Killings, as Brown had dubbed them once they got the an edited version of the story. Simon downplayed the extent of Blair's previous involvement with the victims as much as possible, and the others believed that he had known them through his advisor, and that the killer would target him because of his past association with them. Nothing was said of Blair's own activities. Banks was quite happy to keep that just between the three of them.

The next three days were tense. There had been no pattern of time or place to the previous three killings, one at work, one at home, one on the street heading back to her apartment after a night of picking up johns. Ellison provided cover during the nights with Brown as back up in a surveillance van out on the street. Megan shadowed Blair during the days, with Jim hovering as unobtrusively as possible in the background. As hard as constantly being watched was on Blair's nerves, the nights were even harder.

Jim wasn't talking to him. Jim wasn't touching him. Jim wasn't fucking well acknowledging his existence for the most part, although every time he twitched Jim twitched in response, so obviously the Sentinel's senses were all trained on him, even if he was invisible to the man. Part of him was relieved -- he wanted to get this threat eliminated before he got into it with Jim. But the majority of him was pissed, and getting moreso by the day. Came down to judgement, again, passing it without even hearing his take on things, without wanting to know. And it pointed out the gulf between Jim Ellison, cop, soldier, man of rigid code of behavior, and Blair Sandburg, student of life, experimenter, risk taker, man open to experience without making moral judgements on a black and white scale.

Neither was completely wrong, and Blair was willing to accept that. But neither was completely right, either. They were different, polar opposites in ways that went deeper than clothes and hairstyles and surface attitudes, that went to the core of who they were and how they saw life. He didn't know how to explain that those differences were acceptable to him, made the other man fascinating, made other people fascinating, and he didn't know how to ask if Jim was up to the challenge of simply accepting those differences.

He was fighting with that dilemma Thursday afternoon in his office when someone knocked at the door. It wasn't office hours, and he wasn't expecting anyone. He tensed, then glanced at the small light blinking beside his desk on the floor -- the cameras were rolling, Megan and Jim were watching.

"Come in?" Friendly, open, normal Blair voice. Not even shaking. He was proud of himself.

A medium sized man with brown hair and faded brown eyes stepped into the room. His hands were empty, his demeanor was non-threatening, but Blair found himself tensing even more. There was something familiar about the man.

"May I help you?" Looking up from his chair, one hand over the panic button just in case.

"Blair Sandburg?" Soft voiced, to match the soft eyes. But there was something behind them …

"Yes, and you are?" His hands were starting to shake. The man leaned against his door, staring at him.

"My name's Benjamin. I'm a friend of someone you used to know."

"Really? Who, man?" His eyes. His eyes were so much like Paul's. He reached instinctively for the panic button, and a flash of light caught his eye. A burning numbness spread across his wrist, and he stared in disbelief at the knife now pinning his sleeve to the desk.

"Paul Zaminsky. He was my cousin. He was a good guy," the man said, coming across the small office swiftly. Behind him, someone, probably Megan, began gently rattling the doorknob. Blair hadn't even seen him lock it. "'Til a bunch of whores ratted him out to save their own asses and he went to jail."

He was behind the desk now, his hand reaching out. With a startlingly swift movement, he jerked the knife from the desktop and brought it up under Blair's chin. Blair drew back in fear, and the knife followed, until he was pinned against the back of the chair, Benjamin leaning over him. "They said he was a child molester, but he didn't do nothing to any kids. They didn't care." The knife slid down his throat, leaving a burning line of blood in its wake. Blair stopped breathing and tried not to swallow. "Said he killed himself in there, but he didn't. They killed him." The face got closer, until Blair's field of vision was full of sad, angry brown eyes. "You killed him."

"No, man, I loved him. I wasn't even in the country when he was arrested." It was hard to talk with the weight of the blade over his adam's apple, but he had to try. "I loved Paul, I would never have done anything to hurt him."

Over his attacker's shoulder, Blair saw the corner of the door as it slipped quietly open.

"Cascade police. Drop your weapon." Megan's voice was ice cold and completely steady. Benjamin didn't even acknowledge her.

"You killed him, and I'm going to kill you." The anger unbalanced the sadness now, and Blair could see the tinge of madness below it. Megan couldn't shoot, not without risking the knife slicing into Blair's throat. He couldn't see anything but Benjamin's bulk in front of him, didn't know if Jim was even in the room or not. He licked his lips, staring up at the man holding his life at the edge of a blade, and knew without a doubt that he was going to die.

The hands came from out of nowhere, a nylon cord held between them, looping over Benjamin's head and around his neck before anyone else could move. A knee came over and around, knocking the killer's elbow away in concert with the quick, hard tug of the cord, and Blair was suddenly free. He skittered sideways, scrabbling on his hands and knees out of the chair, around the desk and over beside Megan. She swept him behind her with one strong arm, and leveled her gun on the struggling men.

"Don't kill him, Ellison," she reminded Jim. "Simon wants a live body for trial, if you please-"

Before she could finish the sentence, Benjamin broke free of the strangle hold, slicing backward with the knife and nearly gutting Jim. The side of the desk caught Jim in the thigh and he almost went over, losing his balance for a crucial moment. Without wasting another breath, Connor drew a bead and fired, taking Benjamin directly in the middle of the back as he was lifting the knife to bring it down across Ellison's neck. Jim got his hands up in time to deflect the knife, throwing the wounded man off him. Benjamin was dead before he hit the floor.

Staring at the corpse, panting, Jim stared over at Megan. "I thought you said the body had to be breathing?"

She shrugged. "He was about to gut you like a fish." She jerked her chin over to Blair, staring in revolted disbelief at the mess on his office floor and absently trying to staunch the blood flowing down into his collar. "And he hurt Sandy."

One hand came down and lightly patted Blair on the head. He wasn't sure whether to laugh, cry, throw up, or run as far and as fast as he could while he still could. Before he could make up his mind, the back-up crew, led by Brown and Simon, crowded into the small office, and he did the next best thing. He retreated into a corner, let the paramedic that followed the cops clean and bandage him up, and did his best to shut down his mind.

 

He knew the quiet wouldn't last, but at least Jim kept what was left of his hair on long enough for them to make it through statements, reports, final rundown with Simon, Connor patting him some more, and Brown giving him a hug. The ride back to the loft was tense, silent, the atmosphere between them so thick he could practically taste it. Blair was exhausted, but knew better than to think this could wait until they had both rested. There was no way he was going to be able to sleep with all this still between them.

And after it was out in the open, he wasn't sure where he was going to be sleeping.

Trailing along behind Jim out of the elevator and along into the loft, he dropped his backpack in a handy spot for a quick getaway, right beside the door, and perched on the end of the couch. Jim prowled over to the kitchen, snagged a couple beers from the fridge and tossed him one. Taking his favorite 'interrogation' position leaning against the window with the weak sunlight coming from behind him, shading his face, Jim wasted no time in preliminaries.

"You ready to tell me what the hell just went down, Chief?"

That was his Sentinel. Straight for the jugular. He gulped a good half the beer in three swallows and stared down at it, absently picking at the label. Almost all his instincts were screaming at him, based on a lifetime of experience, to obfuscate like a mad fiend. But one lone instinct was protesting just as strongly that this might just be the time to do something, well, different. Neither Jim nor Simon had hauled his butt in when he'd admitted to them that he'd been a working boy. Who knew? Maybe the statute of limitations on prostitution was past or something? Before he could go any further with that train of thought, a weird low rumbling noise starting coming from his partner. Recognizing the standard Ellison Talk to Me or I'll Whack You growl, Blair took a deep breath, opened his mouth, and went with the first instinct that made it past his lips. To his own complete surprise, it was truth.

"I would never have said a word about it if it hadn't been for the murders." The beer bottle label was fascinating. Much more interesting than the thundercloud passing for his partner's face.

"Why the hell not? I thought we trusted each other?"

Anger he could handle, guilt he excelled at, but that layer of pain was something he had no defenses against. Tearing his eyes from the bottle in his hands, he forced himself to meet Jim's gaze. Yeah. That was pain, alright.

"We do." He ignored the disbelieving snort and continued. "I do. But the past is just that -- the past -- and there's not a damned thing I could do to change it, even if I wanted to."

"If you wanted to?" Disbelief was quickly washing everything else out of Jim's voice.

"Yeah, Jim, if. I didn't see anything wrong with what I did at the time, and I don't now, and I know you do, and always will, and what's the point in introducing a topic into our friendship dynamic that we are always going to take diametrically opposing positions on? Huh, Jim? What's the fucking point?" He didn't realize he was shouting until he stopped. The silence was much louder than he'd expected. Jim was looking at him like he didn't even recognize him, and damn, but that hurt.

"You don't think it was wrong?" A very quiet question. Maybe Jim was going to listen.

"No, I don't. It was consensual-"

"You were a kid!" A little less quiet.

"I'd been taking care of myself since I was eleven years old, Jim, to all intents and purposes. I wasn't even a virgin. In some cultures, girls are considered women and boys are considered men at the onset of puberty. Even in some western cultures, the age of consent is as low as twelve, and in countries that don't penalize homosexual relationships, the age of consent is the same for any sexual activity, which is usually about sixteen. I was older than that. Women get married at fourteen in many places. My point, if you want to hear it, is that nobody forced me to do a damned thing."

"He turned you into a prostitute, Sandburg."

"He didn't turn me into anything, Ellison. His name was Paul. He was my friend. He fed me, he gave me a place to run when I needed to hide, he took care of me, and when I needed money, he pointed me in the right direction to get some. I don't have a moral issue with that. The law does. You do. I don't. If I hadn't gotten that money, I wouldn't have gone on fieldwork that got me hooked on studying Sentinels, I wouldn't be here now, and you'd probably be locked up in a padded cell someplace tasting colors." Ouch. He hadn't meant that to come out so harshly, but he knew, he just knew, what was coming. Of course Jim didn't disappoint him.

"So I'm supposed to thank the son of a bitch for using you as a whore?"

Shit, but that hurt badly. "HE DIDN'T USE ME." Okay, screaming was probably not the right reaction. Somebody had to keep their cool in all this. Unfortunately it didn't look like it was going to be himself. Somehow or other he'd ended up off the couch and nose to nose with Jim. Well, nose to sternum, anyway. The thought broke through the red haze and tickled his sense of humor, and he grinned in spite of himself.

Wrong move.

"What the fuck is so funny, Sandburg?" Woah. Jim had one hell of a grip. His biceps might never be the same again. "You were a kid peddling your ass for a creep who was taking advantage of you! God only knows what kind of diseases you could have picked up, what could have happened to you! That's a damned good way to end up dead!"

Oh. So that was the problem. Time to rethink the strategy. He'd been sure Jim's objections would be on moral and legal grounds, not protective ones, but he should have taken that into account. Opening his mouth to address the issue, Jim blasted right on past him.

"Not to mention that it's illegal!" Ah, so they just hadn't gotten to that part yet. "That bastard had the morals of an alley cat, and he dragged everyone else around him into it! Even if you did consider yourself an adult, it was the wrong thing to do, and if you couldn't see it, he sure as hell should have!"

Okay, enough of this shit. Yanking himself back as far as he could in the iron grip holding him in place, he glared fiercely up at Jim. "Item one. IN MY VIEW, what I did was not immoral. It was my body, it was my decision, it was not forced, I ENJOYED IT, and if I had it to do all over again I WOULD. Item two. Paul didn't make me do a goddamned thing I wasn't quite willing to do. I came to him, not the other way around. Item three. I'm clean, I'm healthy, I used the fucking rubbers, and I lived through it. I would not do it today-" he upped the glare by a factor of three to stifle Jim's I told you so before it could escape - "because I have other options. Not because I have hang-ups about doing it. Because my best friend is a cop and if I was hustling now he'd have to arrest me. Because now I can get the fucking grants and the loans I need to cover what I need, and because I have a niche now that keeps me from being alone, and because-"

A finger covered his lips, stopping the flow. "Alone?"

Shit shit shit. Trust Jim to find the one weak link in the chain. "Yeah, Jim, alone. It was partly for the money, hell, mainly for the money. But part of it was to keep me close to Paul. I don't think he used it, actually, I don't care if he used it, but it was there. I'm not alone now."

"It was wrong, Sandburg."

His eyes closed in sheer frustration. Stuck needle. Endless logic loop. Basal polarization of world view. It just wasn't happening. "We are never going to be on the same side on this, man. I accept the fact that you think it's wrong. You have to accept the fact that I don't. We get past it or we don't. Your call, man. You want me to leave?"

The hands on his arms grew rigid. His eyes slitted open and he stared up at Jim. Oh, but that sucked. From the look of the wide, empty pupils and the distraught expression, it was a full-fledged zone-out. Forgetting the argument, forgetting everything but the Guide imperative to reach his Sentinel, he began a steady stream of reassuring words, trying to reconnect Jim through hearing. To supplement the effort, he lifted his hands and began gently running them over Jim's chest and shoulders, before finally cupping his jaw and standing on tip-toe to look more intently into his face. A flicker, but not enough. He intensified his efforts, right in Jim's face, words flowing over one another.

"C'mon, Jim, it's okay, nothing bad's gonna happen, come on back to me, big guy, everything's okay, it's gonna be all right, man, I'm right here, Jim, not going anywhere, it's okay, Jim, come on back now-"

Mid-litany, the air flow was cut off as Jim sparked back to life, leaned forward, pulled Blair against him, ran a hand into his hair and kissed him like he was never going to let him go.

Blair nearly passed out, from shock if not oxygen deprivation.

Felt like Jim was checking every individual tooth to see if it was loose. He had never been so thoroughly kissed in his life. When sparkles were starting to show across his vision and he was getting light headed, Jim finally broke the contact.

"No."

Huh? Pardon me, big guy, but my brain is steamed jelly and most of it just evaporated. Care to elaborate on that? "Huh?"

"No, don't leave."

Then that mouth was on his again, and he couldn't have moved if his life had depended on it. All his brain cells were scattered, his muscles, with one major exception, resembled boiled noodles, and every nerve in his body was screaming for more. One thought did manage to survive the sensual onslaught, and he wrenched his mouth away long enough to ask a question. Jim's grunt of disapproval at his actions was heartening, but he had to ask anyway.

"Did you kiss me because I was a whore?" He could have phrased that with a little more delicacy, except that most of his higher reasoning skills were centered in his erection and couldn't care less about motivations.

Jim shook his head, obviously struggling to find some words himself. "No."

Well, good, then why'd ya kiss me?

"Part of who you are. Love you in spite of the past."

Thank god for mental communication. Wait a minute. Love? "In spite of? Not because of? 'Cause I gotta tell ya, Jim, there hasn't been much indication that you had any intention at all of jumping my bones until you found out they'd been hired for that purpose in the past." Hey! Cool! Polysyllabic words! Good thing he had a sense of humor to hide the fact that he was both completely confused and half afraid he was about to get his heart broken.

Oh, hell. Today was a day for epiphanies. Looked like Jim might not be the only one in a leaky boat on this ride.

"Only way I knew to tell you it was going to be okay."

Maybe not so leaky after all. And if worse came to worst, he did know how to swim. "How okay?" Lord, that one came from his ankles. From the shiver running up and down Jim's frame, looked like it had the intended effect. Jim bent down and started devouring him all over again.

Feelings Blair hadn't allowed himself to express in years rushed through his body with the force of a runaway freight train. Next thing he knew, he was climbing Jim, wrapping his legs around those strong thighs, clutching at his shoulders, his arms, grinding his erection against the hard lump behind Jim's zipper.

This is what had been building the last three days of silence. The last four years of partnership. Over breakfasts and during stake-outs, with each rescue and hug and cuff to the chin. He knew this urge, but never with this depth, never with this pure, raw need pushing it. He wanted Jim to a depth and breadth that he'd never thought existed. And he wanted him now.

Clothes were an obstacle, but not for long. Nothing survived completely intact, but they could always pick up the buttons later, and knowing Jim's house rules, they undoubtedly would. Instincts trained by experience and enhanced by need took over, and Blair feasted on Jim from his brow to his knees, pulling him over to the couch and toppling him onto it without ever letting go. A love bite to the tendon along the side of his neck invoked a satisfactory moan, suckling bites to nipples showed all sorts of tender spots he hadn't expected, and talented hands working at an impressive erection got both of them totally wound up. By the time Blair got to Jim's groin, neither of them was capable of a coherent word.

Which was fine with Blair. Whimpering worked.

In fact, when he had swallowed Jim down to the root, whimpering was an added bonus. Jim really dug the vibrations around his cock, if the low level screaming coming from a few feet above his busy head was any indication. Jim tasted good, salty along the length, sweet when he pulled out and Blair teased the slit with the tip of his tongue. Smelled good, too, even to regular old senses, clean sweat and musk. And god, the way he felt … Blair's hands wrapped around the tight muscles of his buttocks, playing with the cleft, gently rimming and retreating, while keeping up a steady suction. When he judged that Jim was just about to lose his control completely, he backed off, gently petting and soothing him. Two or three times at doing that, and Jim was putty in his hands. Well, putty with an iron peg in the middle of it.

While he'd been sucking and tormenting Jim, Blair's other hand had been busy. It had been a long time, but he knew what he was doing, and he knew what he wanted. Pumping strongly, he buried his face between Jim's thighs, sucking along his perineum where a love-bite wouldn't damage anything necessary like a testicle if he lost a little more control than he was planning, and holding his cock hard against his clenched thighs, he triggered his own orgasm.

Judging from the muffled shriek, he'd bitten a bit harder than he'd meant to, and Jim was holding a pillow over his mouth. Cool. Didn't want to freak out the neighbors. He licked along the hot skin as apology, simultaneously soothing and driving Jim nuts, and gathered up the spilled semen from along his own leg. Spreading his legs, he nuzzled Jim's balls while at the same time spreading his own thighs. The combined taste of Jim and feeling of his own fingers probing at his anus caused an almost painful twitch in his relaxed penis, but wasn't quite enough to bring him back up. Only time would do that, and he had more pressing matters to deal with. There was something he wanted and he was damned sure going to get it. If nothing else, if Jim regained his sanity when this was over and wanted nothing more to do with him, at least he would have this.

Gently tugging Jim's balls away from his body, holding them there, he moved up Jim's body. Straddling his hips, he reached up and kissed the base of Jim's throat, as high as he could reach while still holding Jim's sac. Then he slid his hand along Jim's length, spreading sweat and pre-cum along it, to ease the way that his own semen had prepared. Rising up on his knees, he carefully positioned Jim's cock and eased the tip into his body.

It felt fucking incredible.

The feeling had to have been mutual, for Jim was staring at him, eyes huge, mouth wide open, nothing but harsh pants coming out. His fingers were gripping Blair's thighs, not hard enough to stop him, more to steady him. Oh, yeah, Jim wanted this too. Blair smiled down at him, touched one finger to Jim's mouth, and sank down onto his cock, at the same time slipping his finger between Jim's lips and rubbing against the center of his tongue.

Christ, that hurt. Even relaxed from orgasm, even loosened, the first few moments felt like he had a blowtorch up his butt. It didn't take long, however, with Jim sucking on his finger and making tiny circular pushes up into him, for the muscle to relax and the pain to melt into pleasure. Kinda like riding a bike, once enjoyed never forgotten, only of course if you tried to do this outside in the sunshine in the middle of the park dodging Frisbees you'd be arrested way before you got to the good part. Blair clamped down on his runaway thoughts and moved his hips experimentally. Oh, shit, yeah, yeah, god, yeah. No pain left. Anywhere. His brain was flying on endorphins and his body was moving all on its own, a sinuous little dance over Jim's cock that had them both on fire in seconds. He'd forgotten, or more likely never really known, how good that felt.

Jim had been hanging on the edge too long for it to last as long as either would have liked, and when he came, the quick, jerky thrusts up against Blair's prostate shooting fire along his veins finished the job for him as well. There wasn't much to shoot, but he spasmed anyway, back arching, one hand falling behind him to clutch at Jim's quads, the other holding his cock more for comfort than encouragement. Then he was falling, limp, exhausted, onto Jim's chest, and Jim's arms were around him, and Jim's cock was slipping free, and he was pulled up and cuddled and surrounded and safe.

Dimly, he was aware of words mumbled into his ear. Forcing himself to pay attention and not fall immediately asleep as his body was demanding, Blair concentrated on Jim's voice.

"We're never gonna agree on it being right, Blair. But I've done things in the past I'm ashamed of, too."

Blair sighed. Nope. Still didn't get. Maybe never would. "Not ashamed," he managed to mumble into Jim's shoulder, knowing Sentinel ears would hear every word, hoping the Sentinel's brain would actually listen. "Not proud. Just was. Over now." That was the extent of his effort, all he could muster. He hoped it would be enough.

Jim, not being all that good with words even when his brain wasn't mush from incredible sex, release of tension and declarations of love, wrapped himself as far around his partner as he could reach and simply held him. As Blair drifted off to sleep, he read the things Jim couldn't say in the way Jim touched him. It was going to be okay.

More than okay. It was going to be forever.

 

~F~I~N~


End file.
